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Uniting Japan - A Ouchi MEIOU AAR

Hello Everyone!

This will be my third AAR and hopefully I manage to finish this one. I will be using the Meiou Mod for this AAR and I will be playing as one of the japanese nations. I ended up deciding for Ouchi after a look on the map, this will be my first time playing as them so I have no idea if I will get oblilerated or not.

I have a few goals, these are:

- Unite Japan
- Try to reach America before the europeans if possible.
- Become a major presence in Asia
- Finish the AAR.

These goals may change if something comes up, I will also be taking in suggestions on both goals and houserules, I am also a little concerned if reaching America before the europeans is liable.

Rules:

- Don't go over the infamity limit.
- Try to do all the missions. If I'm in doubt on a mission is doable or not I will leave it to the readers.
- No cheating or reloads. If I get my ass kicked then it will be the end of the AAR.

Other than that I'm just going to have some fun. Comments, critism and advice is welcome. Thank you for reading this.

Chapter One: Getting to know Ouchi

Chapter One: Getting to know Ouchi

Ouchi is a two province country that also owns a CoT which is located in it's capital Nagato. Ouchi is ruled by Yoshihiro Ouchi who is a decent 5/6/6 ruler and is without an heir. He carries the personal traits "Silver Tongue" and "Generous".

The government form is Shugo Han which gives these bonuses:

We also move one step towards Centralisation and get a stability hit, as our national idea we have Military Drill.

At the start we own the two yellow provinces, Nagato and Iyo, while Aki(Mori) in purple is our vassal. We also start with two cores besides the two provinces we own, that's the province of our vassal and the province to our northeast Izumo.

We start out as you can see with two units, before I will go to any wars I will raise that to atleast six units.

At last the Shogunate is controlled by Ashikaga, in order to declare war the Shogun's influence must be bellow 50, now it's 16.

With that said our first mission will be the Bushido Code, it's requirements is to reach 25 army tradition.

The rewards are 5 Cultural Tradition, Prestige, Legitimacy and -2 Infamy. If it is of interest the support limit for the army is 16 units.

If there is any other basic information I've forgotten please leave it in the comments and I'll try to fix it. Thank you.

Chapter Two: Hosokawa makes their move

Chapter Two: Hosokawa makes their move
(1356-1360)

The first thing that is done is the recruitment of four new units, along with passing on an alliance proposal to our vassal and Shimazu to our southwest, both proposals accepted, Shimazu is the three province nation to our southwest.

The first thing that happens after that is that Hosokawa declares war on us, they have a conquest CB on our Capital Nagato thanks to their mission. As of now they outnumber us 2:1, after we call in our vassal it will be 1:1.

Yoshihiro hiself will be leading the forces on the battlefield. He has 1 in fire, 4 in shock 1 in manuver and - in siege. Should we be victorious in this war we will claim Bitchu, a province east of Nagato.

We reach stability 3 in February.

When we get a diplomat in February we call in Mori and Shimazu to the war aswell. Soon we get a heir, Yoshinori Ouchi, he's a 7/3/7.

Shimazu also backs us up with subsidies.

With Hosokawa having a superior navy I have no choice but to siege the nearlying Bitchu while waiting for them to suceed with their siege of Iyo in order to have them come over to us, the decive battle might be in Aki.

I get a nice enough event that gives me a move towards free subjects, we're not at -4. Bitchu also falls soon after, as soon as Hosokawa takes Iyo they will probably be moving for either Bitchu or Aki, when they do we will be waiting. We hope to get a decicive battle then.

Turns out I was wrong, it ends up with us taking the war to them and then using three months bleading their 15 regiment army before they're finaly defeated on the 30th of July 1357. All that is left is to siege the provinces then the war will be over.

In February 1358 i get the festival event, it gives me an oportunity to lower the current shoguns influence. I do so as I am preparing to take back my cores later on, got to keep the Shoguns influence bellow 50 to do that.

In February 1359 we got a regency council, that more or less really sabotaged my plans as our heir is two years old. After this war it seems that we only may leave in peace for the next 13 years.

In June the same year I get a nice surprise, we gain Bichu by event. I have no idea why... As the war is nearing the end and there is only one province left to siege I decide to disband the 6 mercenary units I hired, our army is now 9 regiments strong.

On Thursday the 8th of August 1360, Hosokawa offers us a peace that is acceptable. We're at peace, and will probably stay at peace for awhile because of our regency.

This is our new look after the war.

If there is anything you miss feel free to shout out. Comments, critism and advice is always welcome.

Nice gains to get started, at least the regency helps keep infamy under control after that.

Hosokawa's move wasn't a very good one, seeing how they ended up according to that last screenshot.

You talked about taking back your cores, where are those?

The cores I talked about are the province of Izumo to the north of Bitchu and northeast of Nagato, however it is a capital so I must either annex the whole country or hope someone else conquers them. The other core is my vassals province, that would be the purple one between Nagato, Bitchu and Iyo. Will upload a map to explain a bit easier

Very little happened under the first year of the regency. The only thing of note is the construction of a few armories and recruiting of some regiments and galleys.

The only thing of note were rebels. For some reason they were extremely hard to kill.

We get a slider move in 1363 and move towards Centralized, it's now at 0 and we get country destabilized as well. We also order the build of 4 galleys along with about 11 regiments so we reach 20 regiments at the end of 1366.

Luckily, it only takes a month to recover. Otherwise the Regency Council spends time ordering Tapestrys and Paintings.

I also decide to train enough regiments to reach my force limit, it will be helpfull as there is inevitable wars that will happen soon.

We get a plague in July 1364.

Two years later we complete our mission thanks to the rebels raising our Army Tradition.

The next one is to conquer a province to our west, a OPM.

In May 1368 we give away a Border Friction CB to Akamatsu. Still nothing interesting to report, just maintaing my endorsement of culture, paintings and such, currently at 70%. Going for a diplomat at 100%.

Another slider move becomes avaliable in December 1370, we move towards centralized and get a stability hit. Takes a month to recover.

Then, on the 28th of February 1371 our new leader is old enough to take his rightfull place. He carries the "Charismatic Negotiator" and "Deceitful" thanks to that and his low diplomacy skill, we now have a "positive" infamity gain of 0,20 a year, simply put my infamity increases.

He also brings a new heir, Teruhiro Ouchi, a 8/8/6 heir.

Sorry Yoshinori, but you are off to the frontlines asap!

I have no idea when I will be able to post the next update as I have an exam in two days, most likely sometime next week. This has been my "day off" in studying for my exams so I can't make a clear promise on when the next update might occur. Thanks for reading!

"Sunset Invasion isn't ASB - it's just Prawnstar playing CK2" Athalcor"If EU3 had exiled prawn-like aliens he'd be the first one to do a WC with them..." aldriq"You were prawn under a conquering stAAR!" Arakhor

Ouch re: the infamy gain! At least the heir is great, for losing that infamy among other things.

Good luck with the exams!

Yeah, this is actually my first experience in gaining infamity because of a bad ruler.

Thank you, feel pretty ready for it, it's just some simple math exam so I think it will turn out okay. I am more in doubt of my other exams, philosophy ain't something I like or is good at

Originally Posted by Ashantai

Great progress! I love how MEIOU gives new life to Japan and China.

Thank you, and I have to agree with you, I'm pretty excited to see how this goes

Originally Posted by damienreave

Yikes. A shame you can't force your leaders to commit seppuku. That guy sure is a candidate. Even a regency is preferable.

Good luck!

I didn't think of that, wish I could :'(
In some ways a regency is preferable, but I noticed that the Shogun has got his ass whipped and is no more. As such I believe I will make an attempt to become the next Shogun. It gives a few bonuses to tax and manpower, probably more that I just don't know about yet. Another thing is that I need my current ruler to die a quick death.

As soon as Yoshinori became old enough to rule, he also became old enough to become a general. Leading the forces against war against the OPM Shino which is our mission is the first thing we do. They have a list of allies, including Date which is also allied with us. However, they don't have any strong allies, as such was is declared and I ask my allies for help inan attempt to not lose the alliance with Date.

It backfires badly, Uesugi, the third strongest Daimyo joins in, but Date honors our enemies call for help, along with Shimuzi deciding to dishonor the alliance. Uesugi joins our side, but Date and Toki joins theirs, that ain't a problem as they have no way of reaching me, the war is a boring one.

The goal of the war, annexing Shoni to get their province, is reached a couple of months after, peace however will take longer.

Apperantly our newest conquest had made the emperor think highly of us as we get elevated to a higher title.

This new title, or government, gives us these bonuses. Compared to the old one we sacrifice 25% manpower for a 35% decrease in technology costs, also we get 0,10 extra yearly magistrates. However, with a maximum manpower of about 8000, and a gain of about 350 a month, this couldn't be less welcome. The tech discount is great, but manpower is already scarce.

As said we finish the mission, and we instantly get a new one, a conquest mission on our former ally Shimazu's province. I declare war immediatly as I already have troops and my ruler in the newly conquered province next to them. Nobody honours their alliance with them, and their army is quickly disposed off, all that is left is the sieges.

We reach Land Tech 8 in the late 1371, it doesn't give anything special but at 9 we get some new troops. Hopefully I can get an advantage by reaching that first.

Toki was the alliance leader of the war vs. Shoni, and already a year after they offer me a white peace that is accepted. After I annexed Shoni this war became pointless for me.

Something that really catched my eye is that Akamatsu declared war on Yamana, Yamana has one of my cores, however it is their capital and I don't feel like eating the infamity of taking all of their lands, I hope that Akamatsu that has three times their troops has plans of an annexation as they attacked without a CB. Maybe they're starting to feel the pressure of having us as their neighbours? Anyway, I'm happy with either result, Akamatsu is strong, so if they get beaten we get more of a powergap against the rest.

While we siege Shimazu we get some always funny rebel problems, for some reason my troops have trouble killing them off but succeds in the end.

I have been paying little (perhaps to little?) attention to what happened on the mainland, and as you can see Song has been taken by a pretender, only 17 years after I started the game Yuan is nearly eradicated with a few scattered and also occupied provinces. Daxia has taken real advantage of the fall of Yuan. If it takes to long untill the next time or there are other maps you'd like to see just shout out.

We got an advent in January 1374 that gave us a core on Sanuki, as the event is called Sengoku Jidai, from what I could figure out from google translates to something like, "The age of war" or "The age of the country of war" if I managed to pick the right articles. But as this is a time of great turmoil with all the clans trying to get the upper hand against each other it might well be true, well I am always happy when I get a free core!

Later we get the Hardy Seamen event that grants us 2.0 naval tradition.

We get some more rebels...

And finally, after an average of over 1200 days, the sieges finally suceed. The most annoying thing with all of this is that those sieges were some of the longest I've ever had to be troubled with.

Peace soon follows for the target province and a small sum of ducats.

The war between Akamatsu and Yamana is continuing, however, it seems that Akamatsus troops have more or less been wiped out or been victims of low manpower, Yamana and their allies have had some sucess sieging Akamatsu provinces, as such the war is open, I have no idea who will rise victor.

We're starting to look pretty nice arent we ? The gains of these wars are the provinces of Hizen and Bungo, the most western ones.

I have interestingly enough found a way to get rid of my leader. That is to become Shogun, get hated and then I believe there is an event that will fire that gives me the choice of giving up the shogun title or having my leader killed. I don't think I will become shogun in the near future so that is however not possible

I managed to save over some screenshots, declaring war and the "warpage" of the Shoni war was two of them along with the dishonoring of Shimazu, sorry about that. Also I have no exams now untill 8. December. I had one yesterday and I had a kinda "either I have done brilliantly or I have failed horribly" feeling afterwards. But, back to the point, I will most likely continue to spew out updates at a high pace for the time being. If there is anything missing or things you'd like me to check up please say so. Thank you.

Yeah, I guess you're right there. At least as far as the experience goes so far. I have played MEIOU before, but haven't had any real trouble with sieges being endless in earlier versions, maybe they changed it for this one.